I woke up this morning and threw back the window drapes with high hopes to see everythign covered in 4-6" of snow. As soon as my eyes adjusted, my shoulders slumped and I turned toward my wife and mumbled "I ******* HATE Meterologists." It's so dissapointing to be so excited for a fairly substantial snowfall and wake up to an inch-and-a-half. I know it's my own fault for harboring hopes of them actually getting something right, but with all thews hype, it's hard not to. Am I alone?
Yes they are barely ever wrong with the temp, But always wrong with precipitation. Also, welcome back gridlocks avatar.
I wonder how any of them still have their job. I can look outside and guess what the weather is going to be like for the next 5 days and be more accurate than they are.
Actually, I've given serious thought to becoming a meteorologist myself. It's the only job with such security that you can be wrong nearly every day and still keep your job!
I think I had a buddy in college who was studying to be a Meteorologist. Do you guys think that meteriology students can get test answers wrong and not have it affect their test score? :biggrin: "No, Johnny, don't worry. You don't fail, you were just a little wrong. [whisper] Don't worry, it's just like this on the outside too...[/whisper]
now you are seeing it from your wife's perspective.... I kid I kid... yep.. I too was a little bitter this morning... but I called it
It's not their fault that snow doesn't show up on the radar exactly the same way rain does. In a few months, you'll all be complaining that they were right about rainstorms!
It's not just meterologists, it's the news in general. There's always a certain amount of selling they do to keep the public watching. I agree on the weather though. It's the only position I know of that you can be wrong 70% of the time and your 'on-track' I look at it this way....why can't they adopt a method where they under estimate the precepitation? If NOAA is predicting 3-5 inches why do they just tell the public 1-2 inches....seems like that would be more consistent. I'm sure the public wouldn't care about an extra inch or so...rather than getting short changed 70% of the time.
Weather prediction systems are not designed to be accurate. Actually, throughout time meteorologists have been incorrect... long before the use of computers. Weather prediction ... it's supposed to be a guideline for people to prepare themselves for what they MAY be facing when going outside. Think of it this way, if the weatherman was always right, can you say for sure you wouldn't be irritated with that? I know I would be.
YES. THIS. This is what bothers me the most about watching the weather on TV, or trying to listen to it on the radio...."and when we come back, the weather." Or, "stay tuned as Johhny B. Wrong lets us know what to expect for the weekend." How long does it take to tell us the forecast? Mere minutes...hell if the forecaster could speak quickly enough...seconds., yet they make us wait until AFTER their paid commercials. JUST TELL US NOW.
/\ THIS!!! Which takes longer to say? "3-6" of snow expected, stay tuned for details" or "We're in the direct line of a storm and we expect some snow tonight. How Much? Tune in at 6, for Paul Douglas's Weather first forcast." This drives my wife INSANE. I just enjoy a diet coors and chuckle.
^what he said. We got enough that I'm running lots of errands with my 3 kids so i can slide corners and listen to my oldest daughter pretend to read pace notes
They are supposed to over-estimate. If they under-estimated and it snowed considerably more, we wouldn't be prepared for it and then they would be blamed for all the accidents people got in with their cars. Snow is also very difficult to forecast, depending on the temperature you can go from 2 inches to 6 (smaller or larger flakes). I have no intention with actually becoming a meteorologist, I have my degree in it, but because of things like this I'd rather have fun working at a aquarium
The study of weather isn't as easy as one might think. I do hate when they say 3-6 and we get nothing. However, It has to do a lot more then a storm system. They try to predict where the high/low pressure systems will settle based on upper level temps and the jet stream(this is what creates weather) Im no expert at all in this field at all but this is the hardest parts of meteorology. They can see a storm system developing before there are even clouds on the dopler radar judging by high/low pressure systems. They predicted 2-5 inches for Rochester and we got less than an inch but in Stewartville(7 miles south of roch) they got 3-4 inches. Not a bad prediction in my book, considering the criteria going into the equation. No snow FTL!!!
It's all because we talked about it... Now that the sled is fixed (I hope), we will not get any more snow...unless I am out of the country (which always seems to happen).
...and this is part of the problem. People blaming others because they didn't expect so much snow. I heard on the radio that people were complaining that the accidents on 35W in Bloomington were because of inadequate salt/sand! That crap really pisses me off, learn how to drive! We do live in MN, after all.
